


Never Looking Back

by Torinasterida



Series: Friday I'm in Love [1]
Category: Bill & Ted (Movies)
Genre: F/M, He gets a little sad in this one folks, M/M, OR IS IT, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Ted talks to himself, we shall never know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27622690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torinasterida/pseuds/Torinasterida
Summary: Ted was fully aware of what was going on. He knew a dude was not supposed to feel butterflies when he looked at his best friend, especially if said best friend was another dude. He knew that a dude could feel like that towards a babe, like Elizabeth. And he had felt like that towards her for a while, but there was a reason why they decided that being just friends suited them best.
Relationships: Elizabeth & Ted "Theodore" Logan, Elizabeth/Ted "Theodore" Logan, One-sided Ted "Theodore" Logan/Bill S. Preston Esq., Ted "Theodore" Logan/Bill S. Preston Esq.
Series: Friday I'm in Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2019589
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	Never Looking Back

**Author's Note:**

> Hey so this is the first bnt fic so hope yall enjoy! This idea literally came into my home and hit me over the head while I was listening to Friday I'm in love by The Cure. I actually have one or two more ideas with that song which is why I've decided to make it a series oop.
> 
> Please please please come scream at me about bnt on tumbr or twitter pls i need mutuals im  
> @dontmesswiththefae (tumblr) & @rornatorna (twitter)

It was a hot Friday afternoon in the Preston household, and more so in the home’s garage where Wyld Stallyns were gathered to do their weekly Band Practice.

Good thing Ted had come prepared to the meeting, with a bunch of popsicles in a portable freezer and four ice cold slushies for all of them. He didn't think anyone would have survived an entire afternoon in there without those things, so he patted himself in the shoulder for thinking about buying all that stuff.

Though neither the popsicles or the slushies lasted for too long, and soon enough they began preparing for ta most excellent jam session.

Ted smiled as he looked at his best friend’s back, currently bent forward, as he adjusted the cable that connected his guitar to the cheap speakers they had bought with the little money they could save. Bill was wearing one of his self-designed crop tops. A black shirt with a faded Guns N’ Roses logo that he knew Missy had gifted him about a year ago for his birthday. He watched as the afternoon sunrays coming from the nearest window splayed themselves over the slivers of visible skin in Bill’s back where the shirt had ridden up, making it look golden and entrancing. Then he looked away.

“Okay, dude! I think I fixed it” Ted heard Bill say as he directed his gaze towards the princesses who were watching from their respective positions behind their instruments.

He caught Elizabeth’s eyes for a second and saw her smile conspiratorially right before he could avoid her eyes, and looked at Bill again, goofy smile in place as if he hadn’t been appreciating his friend’s figure in the sun for the past few minutes.

“Excellent” he easily answered and immediately copied the guitar-riff motion Bill sent his way. He ignored the butterflies that decided to take off from his stomach towards his chest at that moment (he was used to them at that point so it wasn’t too hard), and he kept his smile in place as he started reaching for his instrument.

Ted was fully aware of what was going on. He knew a dude was not supposed to feel butterflies when he looked at his best friend, _especially_ if said best friend was another dude. He knew that a dude could feel like that towards a babe, like Elizabeth. And he _had_ felt like that towards her for a while, but there was a reason why they decided that being just friends suited them best.

The truth is, before dating Elizabeth, he had never really stopped to think about it. The butterflies had already been there before he'd met her in fourteenth century England. They were ever present every time Bill was around. They were there when he smiled at Ted after finishing class, or on Fridays when there was no school the next day and they could stay over to spend more time together.

He had never really given them much of a thought. They were a fixed reality, part of his routine that simply happened to appear around his best friend. He would get to school, greet Bill and feel butterflies in his stomach as he greeted Ted back.

He’d wake up on a Saturday morning, bleary-eyed from sleeping four hours, find Bill next to him still asleep and feel them again.

He would feel them with Bill's smile as Ted came out of his house every Friday for band practice. Warm and fluttery, they would leave Ted feeling exhilarated and kind of relaxed at the same time.

They simply existed around Bill. Ted even thought they could be a kind of sickness, but he knew that the library’s computers would not solve his questions, and he felt well enough not to tell his father about them. So, he just lived with them.

Then one day he heard a senior babe from school describe them, butterflies, when she looked at the boy she liked (not Ted, no babe ever really liked Ted). She described them as a sort of rumble in her tummy, a giddiness or nervousness that would overcome her whenever she was around the dude. He didn't pay it any mind though. Sure, the “symptoms" were similar but her feelings were obviously of a different nature, so Ted didn't make anything of it.

He didn’t think of it again until a few weeks later, the day before the fated History Report, when he closed the door to his home and looked forward to Missy's car and saw Bill just sitting there, arm stretched over the car door, smiling widely at him.

And then, with a soft _oh_ it hit him. It became very clear. Of course the butterflies were a fixed occurrence around Bill. He _liked_ Bill, the way that senior girl had described she had liked her classmate.

He didn't know what to do with that information. Though, in the end, there wasn't much time for him to process it at all. Unknowing of this, in the following day he and Bill would go on a most Excellent Adventure as they traveled in time in order to get an A+ in their report, and they would meet the most gorgeous princesses of the fourteenth century. So the fluttering feeling went forgotten for the time being.

Elizabeth gave Ted butterflies as well, for a while. He didn't feel wrong at all for feeling them when he was around her, so he let himself go. He felt fully what it was to be in love, and he enjoyed it for the little time it lasted. But a shadow of dread still clouded the back of his mind. He hadn’t helped but realize that he felt the same as he did with Elizabeth when he looked at Bill (the butterflies were still there when Bill smiled at him). And by letting himself enjoy being in love unashamedly he became careless and found himself slipping in his interactions around his best friend.

He remembers dipping down to kiss Liz hello when they all gathered in Bill’s garage and turning around towards Bill with the intention to do the same, only to stop himself at the last moment. Ted remembers hugging Bill after an especially epic jam session and lingering for a little bit too much, then not even repeating that awful word they said as a joke as they released each other (he remembers feeling awful when Bill said it, he hadn’t felt like that any time before).

He felt like everyone could see what was going on. He watched his own every action as much as he could, but he still slipped sometimes, and he could see that his way of being simply changed around both Bill and Liz, especially when they were all together. Ted seemed to slip into a more open, touchy demeanor around the group. Why wouldn’t he? He trusted them and cared deeply for them, and he knew that neither the princesses nor Bill would judge him just for who he was. Still he feared this openness, he knew something was different in his interactions.

Most importantly, he knew Elizabeth could see this change of behavior as well. Every time Ted felt himself slipping, smiling a little too much, leaving his hand on Bill for a little bit too long, Liz’s sharp eyes seemed to catch it. She tended to look at him afterwards, eyebrows raised in question, never jealousy, though, of that Ted was thankful. The lack of criticism from his own girlfriend soothed his fears, albeit barely, but he still felt bad enough that he decided to tell her about it one day.

The conversation was hard, and weird, but Liz and Jo had been reading a lot ever since they ended up in the modern days, and she looked understanding about the things Ted tried to explain to her. They, then, talked about it some more, when they met alone, after hanging out with the rest of the band. When they walked along the streets of San Dimas aimlessly, if only to spend some time alone together, they talked. And in those conversations Ted felt like he could tell her anything. She was his girlfriend, he loved her, and he told her so many times; but he, or so it seemed, loved Bill as well.

She was okay with that, she _looked_ like she was when they talked, understanding, sweet and helpful. Ted wouldn’t know what he’d do without her support and her advice during those times.

After a while, they decided it would be best that they broke up. It was not a painful breakup, though Ted did cry when he got home that day. They decided to end things because, though she loved Ted as well, she didn’t feel a romantic connection towards him anymore. _“..and I believe you have someone else that you can love, too”_ she had said, and, as much as it had hurt at the time, she was partially right.

They stayed friends, of course, and Ted realized that they hadn’t really been acting like a couple for the past months or so, so it became easy to go back to normal.

Ted had then taken some time for himself to reflect on what he knew and what he didn’t about his own feelings. He went to the princesses for questions (since he learnt from Liz that Joanna had been questioning herself as well around that time), listened to Queen and David Bowie and spent many nights lying awake in bed, unable to sleep because his thoughts ran a little too fast around his head.

He also spent the rest of his time around Bill. That hadn’t changed at all despite them having dated the girls for a while. Moreover, now that neither of them felt the need to spend extra time with them as their boyfriends, their earlier dynamic had come back full force, and Ted found himself spending whole weekends practically stuck to Bill’s side, sharing slushies and sleeping in the same room as they used to do when they were in junior year.

Ted was, in a way, elated about this development, though there was something inherently different to hanging out with Bill now. The weird boldness he had felt around his best friend when he had been dating Liz hadn’t really left him after they broke up. The knowledge that he was actually in love with Bill didn’t help his situation either. Ted found himself surreptitiously scooting closer to Bill during movie nights or holding his hand out to help him get up from wherever he was sitting more often, touching him much more than before and lingering with his and on him as much as he could without it looking weird. It felt as if he was constantly challenging himself to see how far he could go without Bill noticing, a risky game that he feared he would lose any moment.

He would never tell Bill, though. That was something Ted was very sure of. Despite being more and more okay with the fact that he liked his best friend (he started contemplating the term “bisexual” to define himself after he had heard Joanna describe it in one of his visits) he knew that it was not well-regarded to feel like this. He had seen how some people would react. Hell, he used to participate in this behavior himself, when he joked with Bill about being “fags” and used that word to insult one another. He knew that if he ever talked about it, he could be bullied or harassed, and he didn’t even want to think about his father’s reaction if he found out. Most importantly, he couldn’t risk losing Bill’s friendship over some stupid butterflied in his tummy every time he looked at his friend.

No, that was a personal secret he would never reveal. But, as he found out, Ted was okay with that. He was okay with admiring Bill from afar for the time being. He was okay with sharing slushies from the Circle K, with sleeping in the same room as him and falling asleep to the sound of him breathing and with scooting a little closer to him during movie nights, though never too close.

And he was okay now, as he grabbed his guitar and looked sideways at Bill, hair shining like gold from the sun and smile placed in his face as he, as well, took his own guitar to start strumming along the simple melodies they could both follow. Warm and radiant and handsome and painfully out of distance from Ted.

Bill didn’t have to know. Ted would simply enjoy the butterflies in his chest when they came, and smile warmly at his best friend, whom he loved undoubtedly. And that would be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> God I hope it doesn't feel too ooc I tRIED to write it as in-character as I could but these boys are so dumb it's practically impossible to give them a significant depth without it feeling weird AGH !! I love them so much tho,, 
> 
> Constructive criticism is appreciated! If you have reached here,,, thanks, honestly.


End file.
